In this episode I’m joined by Sagrada where I get on my soap box to answer some of her questions about urban permaculture and post-pandemic food security

My Non Verbatim Show Notes:

TP: for a few months been in zombie apocalypse survival retreat bug out location farm stead site

trying to drum up online business, possibly sell of crypto at a loss, I got to a point where I decided I’ll take some calculated risks, maintain best practices for hygiene, physical distances, evolving protocols and procedures minding restrictions, come back to employment that I had, working for permaculture landscaping companies, with certified permaculture designer founders, one of them amazing former hollywood set designer, high end west side clients, beverly hills, santa monica, pacific palisades,

worked a lot in malibu, fancy parts of orange county

we’ve all be so drunk on prosperity, people do landscape yard make over, still kind of ornamental, even if more drought tolerant, still feel like you’d have to be a hippie to grow your own food, or veggie bed is quaint and cute, but I’m not gonna grow an edible jungle

Larry Santoyo, god father of LA permaculture, deep root, going back to the founders, trained a lot of people, paraphrase all these white hippie new age purple breathing wannabes want intergenerational households and back yard food forests, he’s like oh yeah, cross the la river on the east side and that’s the norm

still see mow and blow landscapers out there, poisoning insects, they’re out there doing their thing

we’re doing some more vital more protected, involving food production and security

interesting because one of last things I said to main employers after I ran to the hills, I love what we do, but I’m taking some time off while this is happening to build up my personal food security in the mountains, honestly I wouldn’t want to risk my life to just be flipping lawns in inedible ornamental landscapes, that’s the hill I want to die on, polishing brass on titantic, but if we’re gonna help people grow food, medicines, harvest rainwater, solar, composting, all the stuff we love to do for ourselves,

hope this supply chain shock, does what happened in cuba, ussr fell, had to be self sufficient over night, organic gardens every where, riding bikes, post peak oil, oil was cut off, crystal ball of the future

what has just happened with corona virus is an acceleration of what’s been predicted about climate change doom sayers

transapocalyptic business plan, help people grow food as licensed contractors

untouchable by gestapo, they gotta eat too, don’t break the hand the feeds you with that baton officer friendly

S: working in the garden composting in, rain catchers, filtering, lot of outdoor projects weren’t even able to get to fully because we were all working full time, perfect moment to spend more time and learn about that, gonna take permaculture certification, know practices more, getting hands dirty, even have fruit trees, is already super prepped to be a little edible jungle

wondering about a lot,

TP:

large percentage of content addressing this reality, feel like this is the time while people are paying attention and have the free time, the real stimulus package should be stimulating your soil, by stimulating it with compost tea, go back to work part time cuz you’re growing half your food

people geeky about permaculture already been doing this stuff for however long, wishing and hoping it would be the easy way not the hard way that their neighbors get on board, this is the hard way but not as bad as being at war,

ancestors were asked to fight the nazis, we’re just being asked to do nothing and stay at home

other people take the risk to feed you, could be a lot worse

S: psychologically damaging regardless, abrupt coercive, that’s how it feels, people really strong mentally, people who are gonna be okay, just wonder about people affected psychologically, gatherings, basic human things we are used to, not measurable, hasn’t been done before

the indefinite part of that, of all of this is what’s most draining

difficulty of it, following rules, not hard to do

TP: feel you on that, heart goes out to younger people, couldn’t imagine when my social circle was everything, now I’m more of a loner, it happens with age

when I was younger it was all about the group mind, clique, high school, punk scene, activist scenes, always hanging out

for me now, that’s not a priority, just want to do me, to be more secure

S: people who are single, recently heart broken, people who are teenagers, already don’t have freedom, now they have to be in abuse household, not in power, not in control of anything, I just wonder, if feel the energy of all that

TP: neighbors see you gardening?

S: people wearing masks, wondering if I should wear mask in my own yard

TP: yeah lead by example, studies are showing larger ranges than 6 feet to spread virus, Dr. Eric Ding take on headlines, on studies coming out, are the best, lot of good press and feedback, constantly myth busting things people use to minimize, rationalize cutting corners, whistling past the graveyard, so new, not one study could really be relied on the gospel truth, it could be disprove, everything is so new, highest level of precautionary principle, most extreme data 6 feet is not adequate, range of days living on surfaces, meters spread from the breath, like the idea of people getting crafty with making designer masks, making lemonade out of lemons

a lot less sickness will be passed around in general if this becomes the new normal, people won’t be so pressured to put on make up, different game of hooking up, gotta get to know someone cuz you can’t see their face

S: thinking about, a few plots of land, totally empty, guerrilla gardening, want to empower people but have to stay away from each other, don’t want to be the only garden on the block, for other people that live in la totally fine to garden on the parkway along the side walk, doesn’t belong to the property owner, belongs to the city

TP: Ron Finley guerrilla gardening civil disobedience, fought the city, made it possible for everyone to grow food in the parkway

S: heard about that, started one in 2017, in an apartment I used to live at, been gardening for a while, you gotta talk to people and let them know otherwise you’ll be the only one gardening, can’t eat everything, it’s good to share, its great, a lot of people don’t know that

home depots closing in some areas, chaining off the seeds, not allowing people to buy seeds, I don’t know, saw some pictures, seeds were off limits

TP: weird stuff in ag industry, I been posting on craigslist for bulk discount produce, millions being dumped, most tragic thing, if I had the infrastructure I’d be collecting it, for composting, and for replanting, garlic, chives, green onions, potatoes, carrots, pineapple, list goes on

grocery store lots can be replanted from the produce section, gives a head start, beets, sweet potatoes, water cress, herbs that are plantable, in soil, intact, a whole garden project out of what’s already still alive at the grocery store, wasting so much, all those people backed up at the food bank, this is farmageddon 2.0, all the people who are trained to know what a transition to a local food security economy we study the history and strategies, just tapping our feet, when do people say we need to stop relying on the globalized just in time supply chain, we need to do edible landscaping

everything in la county civil engineer landscapers, some plants have a purpose, but for the most part, it’s pretty much inappropriate, not native, inedible ornamentals, for shiggles for rich people to look at, public policy nightmare, public edible ecological food forests, hand full of cities in the us, broken free of phobia of public edible landscapes, partnerships, stake holders, designers, you can imagine, of all the community gardens that are out there, plagued by junkies that come and shoot up, racoons, rats, critters, you don’t just get to have this picturesque tidy urban farm that doesn’t attract a lot of other issues, to be rewilding the urban landscape so you have a resilient ecosystem you can forage in, you have to give up some creature comforts, fighting all the animals

dream big, this is the time me and my peeps are gonna try to nudge that paradigm with all the strength we can muster if we can survive ourselves this is a time to show people what they’re missing

S: suggestions for starting gardens? What about where are the seeds

TP: sunset nursery, favorite nursery

there’s a lot of stuff going on in micro and macro economic landscape, try to be a few steps ahead, not as much as the insider trading congress people, didn’t get to in that trade, bet against america and win hard, bankrupting all the poor people

in general being a few steps a head, chaos all these factors, the dollar is being inflated infinite printing money unprecedented levels dilutes, weakens overprinted mighty dollar, value becomes less, economy has to absorb falsehood of unbacked fantasy currency, not gonna be over night that it’s value reduced

bailouts in 2008, other times in history increased supply, history of fiat currencies around the globe in a war, a government has only two options, raise taxes or print more money, printing money is like raising taxes, stealing value from people

that could be a whole series on how all that works, bring people on how can articulate pivotal points better than me

so many things are shut down, businesses activities shut down, less demand

supply and demand in decline because of covid-19, and value of dollar is decreasing

doesn’t just get rebooted by pressing the its okay to go back to work button

geographically isolated economic collapse, not usually whole world

in u.s. buffered by oceans in world war 2

empire the was able to restructure the world, pimp the bombed countries, 3rd and 4th worlds, now everybody’s taking a big hit

on one had, bargain deals of the millennium, people desperate, start dumping assets on market, prices will be driven down, things will be up for grabs

the counterbalance to that, simultaneously scarce items that are in demand will get price gouged, and scalped

raw capitalism

some goods and services are gonna be cheaper than they’ve ever been, then stuff that will be so scarce, people will pay anything for it

for me, be savvy, build a future by having capital in reserve, apply money to long term regenerative ecological assets, food security infrastructure, for local gardening

buy stuff when people are trying to sell

sucks to be pilfering, scavenging salvaging from people in distress, but hey if they’re happy to have whatever they can get for it, you’ll make them happy

that’s why I wanted to go back to work because if everything I want is gonna go on sale, I better have more money to get it

lot of people doing whatever they gotta do, don’t just spend money on whatever, invest as much as possible into regenerative infrastructure, seed stock, live stock

S: think this is gonna effect the price of houses and land

TP: real estate market gonna take a major hit, people can’t even see properties, virtual open houses, real estate industry still moving along but it’s tore up, people can’t move around

the further you get from hipster zones, the cheaper land gets, because of age of farmers in america now, buying opportunities like never before, last couple generations of farm families haven’t been maintaining the farms, gone to cities, to tech jobs, to college, average age of farmer if pretty old,

you could lease land and be a tenant farmer, not responsible for huge hidden cost burdens of owning property

helping them, retrofit to be organic, permaculture, they may have tractors, crops, maybe even a business, if we can take the leap of faith out of overpriced hipster urban zones, go back to land, will have way better options than during the dust bowl, ag industry devastated by ecological disaster, as bad as climate change is we can go back to the land, still have hipster culture online, don’t have to be a shit kicker at local saw dust joint

new movement of back to the landers, forced out of over priced hipster zones, help out aging farmers, bring new energy, could have a whole reboot of american ag sector, organic sustainable, we’ll be all the better for it, healthier happier, next time mega super bug comes around

public health, they didn’t come out and ban sugary products, obesity, diabetes cofactor in deaths from covid

be careful, don’t work to hard, don’t want to end up anywhere near the hospitals, stay healthy avoid the hospital for their sake and yours but get shit done and plant some shit